For most of us, it was an extremely awkward time of our lives when we were transforming from boys and girls into men and women.

For Chris Suggs, his eighth-grade year at Contentnea-Savannah K-8 School has seen him fight a dangerous heart condition while serving as his school’s Student Government Association president and being one of the school’s top students.

His final year in middle school has also seen him help organize an effort to help those among us who are less fortunate — while recovering from extensive surgery to correct his heart condition.

HELPING OTHERS

Suggs, who is also a National Junior Honor Society member at CSS, is helping the Young Women of Promise (part of the Kinston Promise Youth Enrichment Project) in “Hats for the Homeless.” The event, which runs through Saturday, is an effort to collect new hats, scarves, gloves and earmuffs to be distributed to clients at the Friends of the Homeless shelter on Independence Street.

He said he was motivated to do the service project through Kinston Promise after a visit to the mall.

“My mom and I had just come home from J.C. Penney to buy gloves because it was getting cold at night,” Suggs said on Saturday. “I asked her what people who didn’t have money to get gloves, hats and scarves did to stay warm; that’s where I got the idea.”

He took his idea and ran. Suggs has created a flyer and spread the word all over Facebook and Twitter (@PrezChris_). Starting Monday, classrooms at CSS will collect the items through the end of the week; there will also be collections bins at Sand Hill Free Will Baptist Church (3181 Neuse Road) and at The Free Press (2103 N. Queen Street). He’ll deliver the collected items next weekend to the shelter as a way to remember and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.

This initiative to help others, though, is not unusual for Suggs. His mother, Kristal Suggs, said he’s strived to be a difference-maker since he was very young.

“He’s always been this way; it’s normal to us,” she said. “He’s always been exceptionally smart and gifted; it was evident at a very early age. Instead of other people having to motivate him, he’s the one that comes forward to make a change.”

“He’s so attuned to other people; he’s so service-oriented,” she said. “He’s naturally tuned into the needs of others.”

LEADING AT CONTENTNEA-SAVANNAH

Page 2 of 3 - Herring, an outstanding mentor (she’s currently a finalist for statewide honors as principal of the year), describes Suggs as a “natural-born leader.” One example of his leadership as SGA president was suggesting and writing a new policy for students’ usage of cell phones in the lunchroom that Herring and the school improvement team quickly approved.

He also took a suggestion from the student body that dividers were needed in the stalls in the boys’ bathrooms at the school and asked the school’s administration that it be addressed.

“We had no idea that was an issue,” Herring said. “He brought that to us and we fixed it the very next day.”

Patti Hughes, an English/language arts teacher and National Junior Honor Society advisor at CSS, has taught Suggs for five years. She said he’s a technology “guru” who she and her fellow teachers will go to when they need help with a computer or IT concern.

She said there is a vignette she and other teachers share all the time about Chris.

“We always say he’s a future president of the United States,” Hughes said with a laugh. “The qualities he has lead us to believe he’d be perfect for that.”

That’s ironic, since that office is one where Suggs finds inspiration.

“I look up to leaders like President Obama and Dr. King and I like a lot of history,” Suggs said. “I research leaders all the time and try to learn how they helped people. ... I’m motivated by my teachers and principals and I want to make them proud.”

HEART ISSUES

Suggs was attending a basketball game in October to support his sister, who is a cheerleader. At the game, he started experiencing chest pains.

“It came out of nowhere,” Kristal Suggs said. “He wasn’t doing anything major but his heart started fluttering. It got up to over 220 beats a minute and he was put on a heart monitor.”

Suggs was eventually diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT, which causes a rapid heartbeat when the heart’s electrical system just doesn’t work right, according to WebMD.com. He had heart surgery in early December in Greenville to correct the potentially fatal disease.

His mother said although he’s doing well in his recovery, one of the side effects of the surgery has been the sudden onset of migraine headaches, which has slowed him a bit.

“I get the headaches and they’re bad,” Chris Suggs said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m on top of the world and at other times, I feel like the world is on top of me. But I wanted to get back to school. At times, I can’t make it the whole day, but I don’t let it bother me.

Page 3 of 3 - “I know I can be something one day, and that’s what motivates me to fight through this.”

SVT may have slowed Suggs a little, but he continues the daily fight with a smile on his face.

“He inspires all of us because I know he doesn’t feel well, but he still perseveres,” Herring said. “He’s so dedicated to the Student Government Association and to the school. ... All the kids love him and appreciate him. There’s no better role model to middle school kids than Chris Suggs.

“I hope one day to be able to work for Chris!”

Bryan C. Hanks is the editor of The Free Press; his column appears in this space every Sunday. You can reach him at 252-559-1074 or at Bryan.Hanks@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BCHanks.

Would you like to help Chris’ effort?

You can donate new hats, scarves, gloves and earmuffs to help the Friends of the Homeless through Saturday by taking them to Contentnea-Savannah K-8 School, The Free Press office (2103 N. Queen St.) or Sand Hill Free Will Baptist Church (3181 Neuse Road). For more information, contact Chris Suggs on his Facebook page or by emailing him at chris@chrissuggs.tk.